O direito das contraordenações e a ultima ratio

: o princípio que separa crime e contraordenação

Abstract

The following article has as its object of study the distinction between crime and contraordenação. The autonomy and legitimacy of the regulatory offences law is dependent on this distinction, by way of the principle of jurisdiction. Indeed, the entirety of the Portuguese regulatory offences law’s system is built upon the belief in the existence of a fundamental difference between crime and contraordenação, through which many of its challenges are addressed.However, this difference has not proven easy to identify. The reality of the regulatory offences law, heterogeneous and fragmentary, consistently demonstrates the insufficient nature of the many attempts at characterizing its infraction, with such intensity, that its unified portrayal seems almost impossible.This study approaches the question through the principle of ultima ratio, present in penal law. In short, it is understood that in the center of the regulatory offences law and all of the dilemma described resides the aforementioned principle, with the intervention of the regulatory offences law being comprehended as a corollary of the fragmentary and subsidiary nature of the penal intervention. Crime and contraordenação are then presented as two distinct sides of the same coin, with its acquisition and comprehension dependent, ultimately, on the principle of ultima ratio.

Date of Award	23 Jun 2023
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Germano Marques da Silva (Supervisor)